


Building Trust

by Hopeamarsu



Series: Pieces [1]
Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Genre: Allusions to Child Abuse, Bruises, Children, Gen, Homelessness, Investigations, Nuns, Orphanage, Orphans, Police, Teenagers, hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeamarsu/pseuds/Hopeamarsu
Summary: As Flip takes Robbie to meet his colleague, both men are deep in their thoughts. This is the second part of Piece of Heaven.
Series: Pieces [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2156802
Kudos: 2





	Building Trust

**Author's Note:**

> The mentions of child abuse, hunger, bruises, and homelessness are brief and do not go into detail. Please keep yourself safe in all cases.

As the car turns a corner, he finds himself looking at the familiar landscape from a different perspective. It feels a little odd, how he notices new things from the same corner store that he has walked by so many times before. How one of the signs in “Mr. Choi’s Minimart” is missing all its M’s, making it “.R Choi’s .ini.art”. Mr. Choi also seems to have finally changed the advertisement of 25 cent Coca-Cola to 40c Coca-Cola. _Why did the price increase?_

Maybe it’s the fact that he’s not hungry for once, he’s had enough sleep and he’s in clean clothes, fresh from the shower too. Maybe it’s because he is finally allowed to really take in the scenery, not just fleeting glances that he hopes no-one notices and accuses him of wrongdoing. He brushes invisible dirt off his knee, the dark yet clean denim nice under his fingers. 

He takes a moment to really look at the clothes he’s been given by you this morning. They are a little loose and they are well-worn, something you’d apologized several times over, but still, Robbie feels like he’s gotten a king's version of clothing. 

Jeans can be rolled up at the cuffs, a belt fixes the waistband, but otherwise, they fit okay. The dark green button-up flannel is buttery-soft on his shoulders, feeling light yet warm, enough space to wrap the fabric around his fingers. The shoes don’t pinch at his feet and the socks are clean.

It’s really more than he has ever hoped, dreamed of even. 

The night before? He got to sleep in an actual soft bed, with linens that didn’t roll up in the night and he got all the space for himself. Nobody to give his blanket or his pillows to replace the ones stolen (he had multiple pillows on the bed! All for him!) and his feet didn’t hang off the end of the bed. There wasn’t a draft from the windows or other people snoring next to his ear. And the best part? The door locked from the inside, allowing him to finally relax and not sleep with one eye open. 

In the morning, he hadn’t been woken up by screaming and yelling, rushing to the dining hall for scraps of cold porridge. It was with a firm knock on the door and your voice carrying over from behind it. 

“Robbie. I’ll leave you some clothes and a towel here, the shower is across the hall. No rush, but when you’re done, we have breakfast in the kitchen.”

He’d listened to your footsteps taking you away from the door and walked quickly towards the shower, admiring once again the trust you’d bestowed upon him. Once the bathroom door was locked, Robbie stripped off his clothes and stepped inside the spray, the water hitting his skin with the power he was unaccustomed to. 

Shamelessly he’d taken his time in the shower, enjoying the warm water and more quiet. He wasn’t being rushed out, to save lukewarm water for others. No, the water was warm, even hot as it slid down his skin, cleansing him of the dirt of multiple days of walking. 

Eventually, his sense of propriety caught up with him and he dressed in a hurry. As much as leeway you and Flip had given him, he had already pushed his luck far enough. Feeling a little ashamed of himself for taking advantage of you, Robbie made sure that the bathroom was clean and the used towel placed in the hamper before leaving the warmth of the room behind. 

As he reached the kitchen, the smell of hot cakes hit his nose. To Robbie’s surprise, the chef in charge was Flip, expertly flipping the pan and the dough, a good pile already on a plate. You’d sat on one of the barstools, reading the morning paper and holding a large mug with one hand. It had been very domestic and the loving glances between the couple were something Robbie stored in his mind for future reference. One day he’ll have this, he swore to himself. One day. 

“What’s on your mind, kid?” 

The gruff voice interrupts his musings and Robbie looks at Flip who is driving the truck, one hand on the wheel and the other outside the window with a cigarette between his fingers. Flip looks so at home behind the wheel, elegantly manning the powerful engine of his truck. His movements on the driver seat are so effortless, years of practice making themselves known. The taller man glances back, aware that he is being looked at. 

“Just thinking. What’s going to happen once we reach the station?”

Robbie is swift in turning the conversation around, not willing to let his silly thoughts of silly things interrupt today’s plan. He knows that if he were to voice his desire out loud, he’d be laughed at. 

The little things Robbie had been in awe of are things Flip is used to, the comfort and luxury of them a mere everyday occurrence for the detective. _No need to make himself look any more pathetic than he already is,_ Robbie reasons in his mind. 

The tentative plan is that Flip is taking him to CSPD station to meet with a colleague of his for questions regarding St.Agnes and the living situation he has there. Questions Robbie is not all that happy to answer. The atmosphere in the car suddenly turns tense as Robbie realizes the magnitude of what will come. 

He’s going to have to come clean about what really goes on inside those walls of the orphanage. All the times he’s been afraid, lost, lonely, and getting hurt for protecting others. All of it will come to light if he has the courage to open his mouth and speak honestly. 

“My buddy Ron, he’s the lead on the case, he’ll have some questions for you,” Flip says as he glances at Robbie again, seemingly reading the nervousness in his face. His words are plain but somehow comforting to the younger man as the detective continues speaking. 

“It’s nothing bad, you are not in any kind of trouble. If anything, you can help us clear some things out and we can go to the chief with more info on the matter. Ron’s been working on this case for a while now, your input will be very helpful.” 

“Will you be there? When I’m being questioned, interrogated?” Robbie asks, shy and a little afraid all of a sudden. This is not his first time in a police station, not even the first time he’s been interrogated. But that last time he was there it didn’t end too well for him. 

Apparently, a young man dressed in ill-fitting clothing and found loitering around a convenience store that got robbed the previous night is a person of interest. The cop’s words, not his. The cop had taken him into the station and grilled him for hours, asking all kinds of things relating and not relating to the robbery. 

He had not been loitering, he was only waiting for Mr Kendrick to put out the trash so he could get some lunch. That was all, but it had taken some time for Robbie to convince the officer that he was innocent in all he was suspected of and not to take him to St.Agnes on a cruiser. If he had, he’d probably still have bruises. 

He’d gotten some bruises still, even when he’d returned to the house with time to spare on his curfew. The nuns had found out about where he’d been all afternoon (he’d later learned that they’d been informed by the very officer that had questioned him) and they hadn’t been too happy about that. But at least they’d been somewhat placated when Robbie swore he’d said nothing about anything. 

Robbie shivers as fear runs through his spine. Will Flip and this Ron also inform the nuns? He’s underage, that was the excuse of the cop telling the nuns earlier, are they going to use the same reason as Flip drops him off at the gates?

“Do you want me to be? You have nothing to worry about, anything you say will stay between you and Ron, and me if I’m in.” Flip’s even voice cuts through his thoughts again. It is almost like the detective knows what goes on inside Robbie’s head, what he is afraid of. Robbie has to ask before he loses courage. 

“You won’t tell the nuns?”

“No. You are being questioned as a witness in a case against them. It would possibly put you in danger if we told them. And I promised my wife I’d look after you.” Flip comments as the car makes another turn left, the business district a blur to Robbie. 

He gawks at the detective, unsure as to what to take away from that sentence. He doesn’t really understand what that means, what he is supposed to answer. Flip is so hard to read, his face a blank mask that gives nothing away. 

“She’s fond of you already, so…” the older man shrugs, not completely nonchalant anymore, some emotion bleeding into his voice. Maybe it’s deliberate, him giving Robbie a small crumb so that he can trust in him, in them, a bit more. Or maybe it’s because it’s you that he’s speaking of, the love you two share was so plain to see at dinner and breakfast. 

Again Robbie finds thinking himself lucky that he stumbled to this couple by accident. Maybe it was more destiny than luck?

They both fall into silence as the truck moves forward at a steady pace, the scenery changing while both men are lost in their own thoughts. It’s only when Flip pulls to the station parking lot and kills the engine that he speaks up again. He turns a little on his seat, dark eyes open and honest as he looks at the young man dressed in some of his old clothing. 

“You are safe with me, kid. Ron’s one of the few good men inside, you can trust him too.” Amber eyes meet Robbie’s and they are full of compassion and resolution. The emotion in them is honest and it almost knocks Robbie back with the intensity. For a man with an incredible poker face, Flip surely can say a lot with his eyes. 

Robbie takes a moment to absorb it all in. For some reason, this man, this stranger, cares for what has happened to him in the past. And as Robbie studies the detective he comes to the conclusion that the older man also cares for what happens next to him. And it’s not just because his wife told him to do it, those eyes, with all that emotion swirling around, are genuine and do not lie. 

“I’d like to tell you both.” Robbie offers quietly, voice shaking a little; his only tell of how nervous he is. 

For him to tell his story to others, to cops who have treated him with less than kindness before, is a big thing for him. But Flip and his wife allowed Robbie to stay over, fed and clothed him, and trusted him without knowing anything about him.

The least he can do is extend some of that kindness, some of that trust back.


End file.
